He has gotten better with age, but he always has to be so critical. It is almost as though he was jealous of her. He calls her over weight and seems to find it really hard to compliment her. She is beautiful and really intelligent. The life long relationship has taken its toll on her. I love her so much she is such a fantastic young woman (17). How can I make him stop and realize the damage he has done / is doing?

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I would like to ask , how does he treat you? For him to be so hard on her, did he want a son badly? How much have you let him get away with the abuse? Just some questions to asnwer and ponder. Did you notice how he treats his mother and how his father inacted with her? How was he before you married him? When she was a baby how did he handle her?

I, too, have a teenage daughter who, in the past has been victimized by her fathers criticism. I limit her contact with him. My daughter is a wonderful girl with an amazing heart. I realized many years ago her father has pitiful self-esteem and his problem is not going to be her problem. After she visits him I spend a few hours rebuilding her self-esteem. I explain that she didn’t cause his depression and low self-esteem and she can’t cure or control his problems. At the end of the day, it is my responsibility to raise a healthy woman and protect her from harm. My daughter was a year old when I left her father because of his negativity. I will not allow him to victimize her the way he attempted to victimize me. Protecting her had to take priorty over everything else. The last thing I want is for her to form relationships with negative men. I think we have this issue handled now. My daughter has a therapist who helps her and she has me. Bottom line? We do not allow anyone to hurt our children.

I agree with both track and raly, some men if they can’t make the wife feel that she is not worthy of him , they will take it out on the daughter or the child that they perceive she “likes” best..Jealousy can be an issue, but most of all low-self esteem, and what a better person to STEP on than a child , it is like “kicking the Cat” , He probably would never say anything negative to his boss, or another adult he looked up to …but a child that he has control over is his target, How did he get along with his mother,Have you ever thought about taping his conversations and saving them for an ideal Time to sit and talk about how it comes across, If you don’t solve this issue in a few years your daughter Wil be out of the house and guess who will be the next target??????????

I have taught my daughter to love and respect her dad, however, i also taught her you can love someone and not put up with abuse just to prove it! If anyone wants to make you feel less than, good-bye. I believe someone else will want to love you. Just my thoughts.

Do not let him do this… my father was great in lots of ways but one thing I am still carrying is his constant nagging of me being fat! People wonder where I get my drive to not be fat I can still see my dad (I loved him with all my self) but I do not think he realized what he was doing! There is so much danger in this I tell my boys (31 & 24) what a great job they are doing; how good they look, plus grand children how pretty they are; what a great job they are doing; always positive re enforcement no negatives, they are so very harmful, you should try to show him just how harmful this is. Hope I am not ranting!

tape him, not just once… during a whole week. At the end of the week, when you are in private, play it. It would be best if she was not at home just in case there is confrontation. My personal opinion is that he is being very cruel and your daughter is at an age that she is very vulnerable, specially about her weight. This will cause low self esteem for her as well. Wow, usually dads are very protective of their daughters, what happened here?

Everything TRACK, raly, fayette SIPP, yaya, and Lynette are saying is true. It all sounds so easy, right? Your question is “how can I make him stop?” You can’t make him do anything, but you can change how you and your daughter react to him. Your husband is teaching your daughter how to have a relationship with men. Right now it doesn’t look too promising. She’ll probably pick some man at least equally as verbally abusive as her dad, or maybe worse. What a horrible role model. But, I’ll repeat what TRACK was getting at. How does he treat you? MORE IMPORTANT — you are also teaching your daughter something . . . how do you react to this verbally abusive man? What kind of role model are you? He is an angry, controlling man and he is psychologically abusing your daughter with the criticism (maybe you also). Do you realize that children exposed to partner abuse learn “the target of abuse is at fault, not the abuser”. So she grows up thinking that abuse is okay and it’s her fault. Regardless of the dynamics in your family, the simple truth is that the abuse is wrong. So when you are being abused or your daughter is being abused, simply declare out loud that the criticism is not okay! Refuse to go along with it or ignore it. I don’t know what type of rules you have where your daughter’s relationship with her dad are concerned, but I have seen daughters that learned to speak up for themselves when the criticism is happening. If you decide you and your daughter can stand up against this man, please do not try to do it without guidance.

“If you decide you and your daughter can stand up against this man, please do not try to do it without guidance.”

And that is the reason my daughter has a therapist. There is an objective, third party explaining her fathers behavior, helping her process her feelings, positive and negative as well as guiding her through healthy confrontation. If I did not have a therapist in her corner, I would be the b_tch in this situation. I give my best effort to avoid bad mouthing her dad, however, I am not objective. I do not want to be accused of poisoning my daughter against her father nor do I want him out of her life. Most importantly, I am not rearing a victim. My job is to protect my child, even from her dysfunctional father.

great advice … and you can make no one do anything….but you can do what you can do and I think she is on the right track….some women for the fear of “losing ” a man or a paycheck do not stand up for their children. I applaud her for caring and doing something.

Is something cultural happening here? No man has the right to denagrade any woman ………….. let alone his daughter or his wife …………… the physical manifestation of such dysfunction may well be played out in the phenominon of clitoral castration ………. in all explaination ……………. men seem to be afraid of the power of the girl! ……………. always plenty of explaination …………. how ever we should never excuse or tolerate the behavior ………. protect your daugher at all cost!

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